In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

TIME, LOVE, AND FECUNDITY Tlme, in the Levinasian world, is a function of our relationship with another . Levinas is not referring to our varied personal experiences of time nor to our artificial ways of "chopping up" time into discrete units. Rather, he claims to be able to describe time itself. In order to do so, and to prove that time is "the very relationship of the subject with the Other"(TO, p. 39), Levinas first describes and explores solitude, for, to construct a relationship between ourselves and another, we must first study the self, separate from the other. Prior even to our studying the self, and necessary for us fully to understand its characteristics, Levinas asks: How does the self, an IIexis.tent ," come out of the flow of existence-as-such? That is, how does an individual emerge from eternal being, a finite differentiated being from the infinity of the "there is"? Levinas calls this "rupture" breaking out of the anonymity ofbeing, consciousness. When someone becomes conscious , that person is differentiated from being-as.-such. Levinas calls this process "hypostasis." Each conscious being is first alone, existing in solitude . That so many other beings are also alone does not alter the solitude of each. He writes, "One can exchange everything between beings except existing," and, perhaps more poignantly, "I touch an object, I see the other, but I am not [emphasis original] the other. I am all alone." Levinas posits that "materialityand solitude go together." We can exist to and for ourselves only embodied, concerned with our physical selves. For Levinas, consciousness can occur only in a material being, what he calls an existent. Thus, we live in the world, the real world of everyday life, as beings characterized by our solitude and our materiality. 10 TIME, loVE, AND FECUNDITY 11 Therefore, an individual's primary occupation is taking care of himself or herself. Yet, our concern with our own materiality makes us profoundly unhappy. For to be alone in the world is to be profoundly unhappy. As it says in Genesis: "It is not good for the man to be alone" (2:18). And yet, living in the everyday life of the world moves us away from solitude, begins to drive a wedge between the self and its sole identification with itself. Everyday life provides us an escape from our initial solitude. Levinas calls this characteristic of everyday life a preoccupation with salvation. It is in the world that the demands of self first confront the presence of others. It is in the world that we act, ultimately enjoying the objects and subjects in the world with whom we act. Acting in the world, enjoying the world, breaches our solitude slightly. But because we start with ourselves and view ourselves as the object of our own vision, we are still left alone. Neither our material pursuits nor the light of reason can free us from this solitude. Since we cannot disentangle our self from our ego by merely satisfying our material needs-since we always come back to ourselves-then something must arise to interrupt our solitude. This "something" is suffering . That is, the work of our being in the world produces in the end a profound pain, physical and moral. ("By the sweat of your brow/ Shall you bread to eat ... II [Gen. 3:19]). Moral pain is produced by our inability to overcome our solitude. More important, for Levinas, however, is his belief that our pursuit of happiness-that is, our effort to satisfy our material needs-inevitably produces physical pain and suffering; In pain and suffering, we once again find, in a state of purity; the finality that constitutes the tragedy of solitude. The ecstasis of enjoyment does not succeed in surmounting this finality, (TO, pp. 68-69) In there is an absence of all refuge. It is the fact of being directly exposed to being. It is made up of the impossibility of fleeing or retreating. The whole acuity of suffering lies in this impossibility of retreat-It is the fact ofbeing backed up against life and being. In this sense suffering is the impossibility of nothingness. (TO, p. 69) Suffering "backs us upl! against that which we cannot know, cannot make into ourselves. It confronts us with a mystery which is neither nothing nor identical with us. That mystery is death. In our encounter with death, presaged by suffering, we lose all mastery; we are entirely passive. Death lies beyond the light of...

Share